LinkedIn Gets Smart About Unified Search

Professional social network LinkedIn rolled out numerous improvements to its unified search capabilities, offering up what LinkedIn users hope will be more relevant results.

LinkedIn is no slouch when it comes to the number of searches conducted on its website (over 5.7 billion according to the company). A better search experience, one that pulls content from across the site (and elsewhere) and includes better intent detection - which obviously leads to more relevant results - could certainly prove invaluable to users of LinkedIn.

The social network, likely in an effort not to be undone by the likes of Facebook's Graph Search, is also touting its auto-complete feature which provides a list of search options as members type their search terms. And the more LinkedIn learns (detects) about their "intent" over time, the more relevant auto-complete results will become for users.

There are also a whole host of advanced filters that let members search by location, company and school, and members can even set up automated alerts that send notifications when their saved search results have changed.

The changes to LinkedIn's search capabilities has evolved over time but this certainly seems to be one of the more aggressive releases. The upgrades should be available to all LinkedIn members over the coming weeks.